


Five Steps on the Path to a Shifting Destination

by azephirin



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: 5 Things, Academy Era, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Birthday, Child Abuse, Cuddling and Snuggling, Cunnilingus, Domestic, F/M, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Morning After, Requited Love, Roommates, Singing, Teacher-Student Relationship, girl!McCoy - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-28
Updated: 2010-02-28
Packaged: 2017-10-07 14:56:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/66247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azephirin/pseuds/azephirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>You told me if I had my way I'd be bored. Right then I knew I loved you best.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Steps on the Path to a Shifting Destination

**Author's Note:**

> **Warning:** discussion of past physical abuse of a child
> 
> **Spoilers:** for the movie, in an AU sort of way
> 
> **Disclaimer:** Not mine, which makes me sadder than you can possibly imagine. Summary from "[Language or the Kiss](http://www.indigogirls.com/discographyandlyrics/lyrics/swampophelia.html#language)," by the Indigo Girls. Totes appropriate for a _Star Trek_ fic, don't you think?
> 
> **Author's note:** Y hello thar, story that ate my life! I've made some shifts to canon (apart from the obvious gender bit), which I hope will make sense as you read, but I'll throw a note at the end as well. Thanks to [](http://theladyscribe.livejournal.com/profile)[**theladyscribe**](http://theladyscribe.livejournal.com/) for beta, to [](http://katomyte.livejournal.com/profile)[**katomyte**](http://katomyte.livejournal.com/) for not rolling her eyes (much), and to [this picture](http://i170.photobucket.com/albums/u245/azephirin/76527097.jpg) (worksafe but suggestive) for being highly, um, inspirational.

The first time Lee McCoy met Jim Kirk, she threw up on him, a story he has never ceased to tell with relish and glee.

"I don't understand why it surprised you, Jim," Nyota Uhura tells him as a group of them sit around a table at Sororo's, a Mexican restaurant in the Mission favored by Academy cadets for its gargantuan and inexpensive burritos. "I think it's a perfectly reasonable response to the situation." Jim blows Nyota a kiss. She rolls her eyes. "Lee, really, how do you manage to live with him without killing him?"

"He cleans the bathroom."

"I'm a manly man!" Jim protests. "I don't clean—"

"He also vacuums," Lee confides.

"Only when the carpet's really dirty," he mutters, and the group laughs.

 

Nyota walks partway back with them, but splits off at the edge of campus, claiming that she left something in a classroom.

"It's not that far out of the way," Jim says. "We'll come with you."

"It's in the opposite direction," Nyota demurs. "Don't worry about it."

"You shouldn't be walking around this late by yourself," Jim protests. After living with him for a year—and enduring his pursuit of Nyota for as long as she's known him—Lee can read his tone: He's completely serious.

"Jim," Nyota says. "I'll be fine."

"It's a short walk," Lee adds, mainly because she's morally certain Nyota didn't leave anything anywhere and won't be going near the classrooms. "Come on, Jim. Not every woman in the world needs an Iowan in shining armor."

"Fine," Jim gives in, though he still looks disgruntled. "But buzz us when you get home."

Nyota shakes her head and sighs, and they say their good-nights. Lee glances back to see that Nyota is in fact going towards the academic quad, but Lee turns back around before Jim can follow her gaze and see Nyota veer off in the direction of the officers' quarters. But Jim's attention has already glittered away, and he throws an arm around Lee's shoulders as they walk back to the dorm. She puts one of hers around him, too, and they walk across campus in the cool night air.

"So tell me something," Lee says. "What would you do if Uhura actually took you up on one of your propositions one day?"

Jim blinks. "You think that would actually happen?"

Lee can't help laughing. "Do you?"

"Well, hell, not like I'd say no, but I'd probably have to finish dying of shock first."

"So why even bother? You know it drives her nuts."

Jim just responds with a look that says, "Duh."

They're haven't been home long when Lee's PADD vibrates. It's a text, not a visual—for easily inferred reasons. "She's back," Lee says to Jim.

"Home, or committing amazing feats of acrobatics with that pointy-assed professor with a bowl cut?" Lee starts coughing, and can't stop. Jim, of course, decides that this is the proper moment for a song. "I think of all the education that I missed!"

"Jim!"

"But then my homework was never quite like this!"

Lee elbows him, hard.

He mimics playing the guitar, which also involves gyrating his hips and throwing his head back. He howls, "I've got it bad, got it bad, got it bad—I'm hot for teacher!"

Lee kicks him in the shin.

"Ow! Also, you obviously need an education in classical music."

"Remind me why I'm friends with you?"

"Because you love me beyond all reason, Bonesie."

Sadly, it's true.

"You just keep telling yourself that."

"Or maybe it's because I clean the bathroom."

"Now that's more like it."

"Teacher needs to see me after school," Jim sings under his breath, and grins dazzlingly when she glares at him.

+||+||+

 

It's not technically against the rules for a female cadet to live with with a male—especially given the wide social and biological gender variations among the various species at the Academy—but, coming from two humans, the request nevertheless raised some eyebrows. Still, as Jim pointed out to the administrators, no existing regulation forbade it, and the request was granted. Lee wound up with a good number in the housing lottery, and so they have an apartment—small, not much to look at, but a real apartment nevertheless, much better than the single rooms they'd both shared with other people during their first year.

Lee unpacks her clothes and school necessities first—only practical; she'll need them—and her holos second. She puts the clothes in the closet and everything course-related on the desk and bookshelf, then arranges the holo frames around the room where she most wants to see them. Then she finds a set of sheets, makes the bed, and promises herself she'll lie down for only a moment. But moving is exhausting, and she's so tired—

This is, of course, when Jim crashes through the door, observes that more than a bare mattress is present in the room, and avails himself of it in a way that more closely resembles a belly-flop than an act of reclining. Lee yelps in surprise. Jim steals a pillow. Lee steals it back and whacks him with it.

"Hey!" Jim objects.

"I was using that," she informs him, and hits him with it again.

There's some shoving around until they're sharing it. Lee thinks, not for the first time, that being around Jim Kirk is like being around an oversized, sentient Labrador puppy. An oversized, sentient Labrador puppy that can talk, and that right there is clearly why God made animals dumb. "Comfortable," this particular Labrador puppy informs her.

"You have your own room, you know."

"Can't find my sheets."

"Maybe if you'd labelled your cargo transports, you wouldn't be having this problem."

He shrugs that off—of course—and puts a hand behind his head to look around. "I don't remember all these holos from your old room."

"Didn't have space for most of them."

"Who are— Hey, is that you?" He sits up and looks at a frame on the nightstand: Lee at nine with her Walking Horse. Lee almost cringes at how awkward she was at that age—she wouldn't grow into her height and her cheekbones until college—but she looks so happy in the holo. It's not one of the many show segments, just a snapshot someone took of Lee in a pink sweater with her arms around Cadie's neck one day in the stables. Jim picks it up to inspect it, and Lee sees that he's smiling: not the grin meant for charisma and charm, but a real smile. "Aw, look at you. Was that the horse you had when you were a kid?"

"Yeah. Cadie."

"Who could resist two pairs of big brown eyes like that?"

"Are you telling me I look like a horse?"

"Leonarda McCoy, with the superpower of turning any compliment into an insult of the grievest sort." He sets the frame back in place with an odd amount of care, and his attention falls on the one next to it. "Your grandfather?"

"Grandpa Lenny. Who could never believe my parents named a girl after him."

"'Lee' definitely suits you better." He's seen some of these before, but he asks about all of them—except for the one of Joanna, because he knows that story, too. Lee's drowsy again by the time they make it all the way around the room, and so's Jim, dozing off shoulder-to-shoulder with her. She should know better than to be close to him like this, but she's tired, and he's so warm. Just a little nap, and then maybe they can eat—

"I don't know where the dishes are," Jim informs her, apropos of nothing that she can discern.

But even that doesn't wake her up this time. Lee just says, "Was your job to pack 'em."

"Uh-huh," he agrees.

"You can take us out to dinner later."

"Okay." He nudges a little closer, and this is really a bad idea on a variety of levels.

"But you have to shower first, because you smell like you rolled in something."

"Do not."

"Do too."

They sleep.

 

+||+||+

 

You get used to certain things, living with Jim Kirk. The chatter, for one, and the complete lack of boundaries about certain things, for another. Sometimes overlapping with this last issue is the libido.

It's not like Lee hasn't seen a bra before: She is a woman, and she was married to one for eight years. But she doesn't need to see strange underwear on her couch. Particularly, she doesn't need to see strange, discarded underwear on her couch. Strange, discarded thong underwear on her couch. She can't just pick it up and throw it away—God only knows what kind of contagion are present. And if it's an alien species—Jim does like to take practical knowledge of xenobiology to new levels—the diseases could be unknown and potentially untreatable in humans.

Lee backs away a little.

And almost trips on a pair of garters lying on the floor.

She flees to Nyota's—except that Nyota is "at a friend's" (translation: with Commander Spock), leaving Lee at the mercy of Gaila. Who is sweet, bless her green-skinned heart, but not really what Lee needs when she's already got one overlibinous person on her plate.

Except that Gaila just says, "I was going to make dinner. You want?"

"I don't think I can eat after seeing…that."

Gaila raises an eyebrow. It's very Vulcan, except really, really not. "A pair of panties?"

"Do you know what kind of diseases could be transmitted that way? Just the human possibilities alone—"

Gaila laughs and turns around, but then pauses and turns back. "You know that guy you went out with a couple of weeks ago?"

"Keith?"

"Yeah, him. I ran into Jim after you guys left for wherever you were going."

"The ballet," Lee says. "We saw _The Firebird_—it was incredible."

"Ballet, huh?"

"Yeah, I hadn't been in years. I've always loved it, but not so much with the spare time now, and before the Academy—" Lee shrugs, trusting that Gaila will infer the rest: along with their notorious pheromones, many Orions possess significant empathy and intuition as well.

Gaila's watching Lee carefully when she says, "Jim was muttering and threatening to kick the guy's ass if he wasn't nice to you."

"Oh, for God's sake. The Iowan in shining armor rides again. I was taller than Keith. By a lot."

Gaila busies herself so that it appears casual when she says, "You should just tell him, Lee."

"Tell him what? Keith and I only went out a few times."

"Not Keith, silly. Jim. Tell him. Tell him how you feel."

Lee's heart thumps uncomfortably, but she manages, "How I feel?"

"How you feel," Gaila repeats, as though she's teaching a basic phrase in an alien language to a particularly slow learner.

Fortunately, this is when somebody starts knocking on the door; unfortunately, it turns out to be James T. Kirk. "Hey, Gaila. Oh, hey, Bones. I was looking for you. What are you doing here?"

"Nothing!" chirps Gaila.

"Having dinner," Lee says, louder, with what she hopes is a death look at both of them.

"Actually, I really should study," Gaila says with wide, innocent eyes. "I have a huge exam tomorrow."

"Tomorrow's Saturday," Lee says.

"It was rescheduled."

"Come on, Bones, leave Gaila alone, and we'll get food," Jim says.

"Not while there's a biohazard in my living room," Lee informs him. Jim looks perplexed, and Lee elaborates, "That…piece of clothing on the couch."

To Lee's immense surprise, Jim blushes. "Um, yeah. Sorry about that. I kind of…forgot they were there."

"So I noticed," Lee replies with what she hopes is a flawlessly icy demeanor.

"They're gone now?" Jim tries.

"I'm not sitting on that couch until it's been cleaned with a hazmat kit. What species was she?"

"Vulcan."

Gaila blurts out, "Wow, you got a Vulcan girl to forget her underwear in your living room?"

Lee throws her another glare, but addresses Jim. "Vulcans are susceptible to a variety of diseases that are untreatable and potentially fatal in humans! Just sexually transmitted diseases alone—"

"Bones, I really don't think Vulcans are the species you need to worry about for out-of-control STD rates."

"I dunno, if she's the kind of Vulcan girl who'll leave panties out in the open—" Gaila points out.

Lee isn't done with Jim. "All I ask is that you keep your neverending personal porn show private, OK? It's your life, you can do what you want, but you may have noticed that the walls in this building are not that Goddamn thick"—Lee notes, with a certain amount of satisfaction, that Jim looks horrified—"and I don't think it's unreasonable not to want potentially disease-ridden panties and garter belts lying around the living room! I don't care what you do, just…please don't do that, OK?"

There's a strange pause, and when Jim answers, his voice is suddenly quiet. "Yeah, I know you don't care. I'm sorry. I won't do it again." He walks out and even closes the door like a normal person.

"Oh, honey," Gaila says, and hugs Lee.

 

+||+||+

 

It's hard not to drink on her birthday. Just a shot of whiskey to mark another year—but she said she quit, and she meant it. It applies on September 5 just as much as it does every other day.

She notices that several other people aren't drinking, either. It's a large, somewhat rowdy group, Lee's close friends along with a number of people she knows less well (and some she doesn't know at all), and alcohol is certainly flowing among them, but not among Nyota, Gaila, and even Jim.

It's a long night but a good one, and Lee's tired and content as they scan into the apartment. She goes to pour herself a glass of water, holding up a second in a wordless question; Jim nods, and she pours one for him, too, as he leans on the doorframe between the living room and kitchen. "You have a good birthday, Bones?"

"A very good one," she says, and doesn't add that it's the best she's had in a number of years.

"Get all the presents you wanted?" He's smiling.

There are really only two things Lee wants. One is back home in Kentucky: a daughter she misses with all her soul, who will never be legally hers due to the circumstances of her conception and an outdated legal technicality. She'd really, really hoped to talk to Joanna today. But Jocelyn controls that, and Jocelyn is not inclined to generosity where Lee is concerned.

Lee puts it out of her mind. If she thinks about Joanna, she'll never think about anything else.

The other thing Lee wants is standing across the kitchen from her, and she's pouring him a glass of water, and it's enough that she has him like this.

"Yeah," Lee says, "I did." She hands him his glass of water.

"Good. You deserve to have all the presents you want." He's meeting her eyes as he says it, and suddenly the moment is very full and the kitchen is very small. She's aware that she would only need to take one long step to cross it and stand in front of him—

"You want to watch _The Late Show_?" she asks him, deliberately, to break the tension. "Connell Barrymore's on, and I know all about your man-crush."

He nods and turns toward the living room. Lee's surprised at the lack of defense against her man-crush accusation (and Jim totally does have a man-crush on the actor); Jim turns back around, though, and she expects him to fire some sort of volley in support of his unassailable heterosexuality. Instead, though, his face is tight and intense, and he's looking into her eyes like their gaze was never broken. "Bones, there's something— I know it's your birthday and not mine." He hates his birthday—she figured that one out pretty much as soon as she figured out whose son he is. "I want to ask you for something, but you can—you can say no, OK? And we'll just forget about it and still be roommates like always."

"Jim, what—"

He's the one to cross the room in a long step. He brushes her hair back from her face, and she's too blindsided to react—whatever this is, whatever he wants, it's nothing she ever planned for. "I want to kiss you. Just once, doesn't have to be anything more than that. Just once."

"How much did you drink—" She didn't think he'd had anything, but maybe it just wasn't where she could see it—

"Nothing. None of us did. I know what I'm doing. But if you don't want to, that's different."

She nods, because there are a few seconds when her mouth and brain can't remember how to form words. "I do want to. It's— I want to."

His grin is blinding and joyful. And hungry. "Good," he says.

It's gentle at first, just their lips, with his hands on her cheek and the back of her neck, and hers on his shoulders as they lean against the counter. She pulls him closer, and suddenly it's fiercer, heated: Her mouth opens to his and his hands tangle in her hair, and he's pressing her into the laminate and her hands are sliding into the back pockets of his pants. He bites kisses down her neck, pushes aside the collar of her shirt to reach the base of her throat, and she shudders against him and realizes that he's hard—for her, because of her.

He starts untucking her shirt at almost exactly the same time she begins doing the same with his. He's wearing an undershirt, but finally her palms reach skin—smooth, outlined with muscle, dusted with hair on the chest. She scrapes her nails lightly across his belly, and he gasps.

There's another pause, and they look at each other.

The decision to go to bed is bilateral and unspoken.

Neither of their rooms is appreciably closer than the other, but her bed is more likely to have clean sheets. She guides them there, although they don't arrive immediately: There's a pause in the hallway when he pushes her against the wall; there's another stop in the bedroom, in the doorway, when she pushes him against the doorframe and he grabs her hips as they kiss, rubbing together until they're both gasping. She starts unbuttoning his shirt, and he pulls away from the jamb to shrug it onto the floor.

When they finally get to the bed, she falls onto it and pulls him on top of her. He's solid and heavy against her, hips between her thighs, and she can see his own reaction in the way his eyes widen. He kisses the underside of her jaw, the hollow beneath her ear, as his fingers busy themselves unbuttoning her shirt—and then he pauses about four buttons down, staring as though he's had a revelation.

"I'm not Dolly Parton; I don't need one," she says, defensive.

"Oh, Bones, you're saying that like it's a bad thing," he breathes, and undoes two more buttons before he finally leans down and puts his mouth on her. It feels amazing—his lips and tongue, sucking until sparks zing along her nerves. He unfastens the remaining buttons, and she slides her hands beneath the undershirt. He raises his arms and they strip it off him; then he returns to his earlier focus. He licks at her nipples with the point of his tongue until her hips are arching, then he moves his hand down to rest warm and tantalizing over her pubis. He's not rubbing her hard, really only pressing just a little, but it's enough to remind her of what else that hand could be doing. "Can I?" he whispers. "Will you let me?"

She doesn't manage a _yes_. Just a _please_.

He unzips her skirt—short and straight, as she's not above showing off her legs on her birthday. He doesn't push it down immediately, though, but instead strokes her through her underwear, the cloth rough but his touch soft. She moves against him, encouraging him, and he makes a pleased _hmm_. "So wet for me already—God, I bet you'll taste good." She wriggles the skirt down, and he helpfully pulls it the rest of the way off. He props himself up on an elbow and looks down at her, and she wonders what he sees: short dark hair mussed from his hands, nipples hard and pink from his mouth, white cotton shirt open and in disarray. But then his eyes land on her underwear, and he says, "I can't decide whether it'd be better if you picked those out specially for today, or whether you wear things like that all the time."

They're black, lacy—maybe a little fancier than usual, but Lee's mother always told her that you should always wear decent underwear, because if you got hit by a car, you wouldn't want people to think you'd been the sort of girl who would wear anything else. (A little part of Lee had always wanted to say, _But, Mama, I'd be **dead**_—this was not, however, the sort of thing one uttered to Taliaferro McCoy.) "They're pretty much like what I wear every day," Lee says.

Jim drops down next to her, one thigh covering hers, and slides his hand across her belly. "Mmm," he says happily. "So every day, when you're wearing that uniform, what you're actually wearing is a pair of underwear like that—Are there different colors? I think there should be different colors—underneath the skirt, and every day, in the morning, you actually stand there and **pick them out**."

She laughs. "Jim, you've met me in the morning."

"Doesn't matter. You're still standing there, half awake, probably slept in one of my old T-shirts like usual—also sexy, in case you were wondering—with bare legs up to your ears, **picking out your lacy underwear**. There is no universe where that is not hot."

Still laughing, she wraps her arms around him. They fit together like a lock and its key.

When his fingers, mischievous and exploratory, find their way beneath the elastic, she opens for him, rises to meet them. He circles two fingers on her clit and kisses her as she shudders. He keeps doing it, rewarding her moans with more kisses, before he shimmies down to press his lips where she's soaked through the cotton. "Smell so good," he murmurs. "Want to lick you until you're screaming my name."

And then he pulls the panties off and proceeds to do just that.

She doesn't mean to yank at his hair, but she sort of loses her fine motor skills when he sinks two fingers into her and teases her clit with the tip of his tongue. She comes once like that—gasping, not quite screaming—and then he doesn't stop and she comes again, crying out some combination of _Jim_ and _God_ and _yes_.

Because his ego needed to be bigger than it already is.

The rest of their clothes come off quickly after that: her shirt (mainly a technicality at this point), his black dress pants. He's kneeling over her, but she pauses them there to rub him through his briefs, watching his eyes close and his head drop down as she strokes the length of his cock. He's exquisitely hard, and there's enough precome that she can feel it through the fabric and use it to play with him the way he did with her. He thrusts into her hand, and she pushes the briefs down and closes her hand around him for the first time.

They both moan when he slides into her. He sighs, "Bones," against her mouth, and it would be ridiculous if it weren't what he's called her every day of her life for the past two years. He kisses her face, and she wraps her legs around his hips.

He's gorgeous and thick, sliding in and out of her, and they move easily, tangled together. His eyes are warm and open, and she meets them. She urges him faster and deeper, and she can feel when he starts to get close, can feel the tension in his hips and thighs as he tries to hold himself back. She bites his shoulder and whispers, "Come for me."

He does, in a hot rush, trembling as it pours out of him. He's still shaking as he kisses her, first hard and fierce and then more gently, peppering her lips as he reaches between her legs and brings her to the orgasm she's already on the verge of, brings her there and takes her over until she's trembling, too, first in the throes of pleasure and then in the wash of release.

He rubs their noses together as they catch their breath. She laughs at him again, but he just smiles at her—like he's pleased with himself, with her, with the world.

 

+||+||+

 

The room is bright with sunlight when Lee wakes up. Jim's stretched out next to her on his side, still asleep, arm thrown over her belly. His skin is lightly shirred with sweat; his face is bestubbled and there is some evidence of the acne to which it remains prone; his hair is saluting every cardinal direction and most of the ones in between. He's so beautiful, naked and unconcerned, that it hurts her a little. She runs her fingers lightly over his arm and shoulder; she reaches up to trace the lines of his cheekbones and lips. He makes a contented noise but doesn't wake, and turns onto his stomach, settling more comfortably against her. She wouldn't trade any second of last night for the world, but it's nice to have a chance to look at him now, at the planes and shadows of his body, to see her darker hands on his golden skin. She strokes the line of his spine, the smooth skin and sinuous muscle, then moves to his hip, his thigh, even the curve of his ass.

The irregularities her fingertips pick up aren't acne.

She raises her head to look, and her medical training takes over. Scarring caused by trauma to the dermis, likely from contusions resulting from impact by an object. They're light—likely she wouldn't even have picked them up if the room wasn't so bright and her hands weren't trained to search, however unconsciously, for whatever's wrong.

They're light but numerous, and the irregularity in shape, color, and placement suggests that they were not the result of a single episode.

Lee moves out from under his arm as carefully as she can, trying not to disturb him. He stirs, and looks mildly disgruntled; she takes a steadying breath and kisses his forehead, praying he doesn't wake up all the way. Lab puppy Jim may be a good bit of the time, but he's got the tenacity and ruthlessness of a pit bull when something doesn't sit right with him.

His face evens out again into the serenity of sleep. Lee gets up and walks into the bathroom with steps as measured as she can make them.

She's still standing there in front of the sink, head down, fingers white on the rim, when Jim wanders in a few minutes later. He kisses her shoulder and nudges up against her, and Lee realizes that this isn't actually yet another instance of Jim Kirk inappropriateness: She forgot to close the door.

"Twenty-four hours ago, I might have just gone ahead and taken a piss, but I think now I'm not supposed to do that."

There's a laugh that bursts out of her, she can't help it (does he really think that at any point he was supposed to do that?), but she knows it sounds wrong. The drowsiness disappears from Jim's eyes, and he straightens—barely perceptibly, just enough to let her pull away if she wanted. "You OK, Bones?"

What comes out is, "I didn't know it was that bad," which is not what she means, and which is also maybe one of the worst things she could have said in this specific situation.

Jim looks horrified. "Oh my God, Bones, if you meant last night, no, Christ, no, not from where I'm standing—"

"I didn't mean that," she says, and the laugh is even worse than before. "I didn't mean last night. I meant—he left scars, Jim. On you. He left scars on you."

He sighs, and his eyes go to a point on the wall. "Oh." There's a silence in the small room, and Jim says, "It was a long time ago—you don't have to—"

"I don't have to what? I don't have to notice that the sick fuck who was supposed to be taking care of you beat you so badly that I can still see it a decade or two later?"

"OK, yeah, he was a scumbag, but it's not a thing—"

As steadily as she can, she says, "What if it had been me, Jim?" He looks blank, and she adds, "If our situations had been reversed. What if it had been my father—"

He actually looks offended at the suggestion. "Your dad would never—"

"This is a hypothetical, Jim. No, he wouldn't. That's the point. But, OK, let's say that my dad had died tragically at a young age, and my mother remarried because she wanted a father figure for her little girl. So I would have had a stepdad, Jim, and let's say that when he was drunk—but, you know, a lot of times when he wasn't—he would beat me. Some years go by, and let's say that you woke up next to me a few minutes ago and you weren't thinking about anything like that, but you ran your hand down my body and you could feel the scars, and I had never told you that it had gotten that bad. Imagine all that—imagine that somebody did that to me—and tell me how it would make you feel."

Jim's mouth is tight. "I'd go kill the motherfucker."

She doesn't break eye contact when she says, "Right." Another silence, brittle and glassy, as though it might shatter into pieces.

After a moment, she moves her hand over, on top of his, and Jim turns it to lace their fingers together. They both move simultaneously, infinitesimally, but enough that their bodies are touching. Jim drops an arm around her waist, and she rests her head on his shoulder. "He's not worth you getting arrested," Jim says.

"No," Lee agrees. "But you are."

"If you're going to do something having to do with me that involves getting thrown in jail, I can think of a whole list of things a lot more awesome than that."

He's distracting her, but it's OK. This time her laugh sounds right. "Such as?"

"You really never wanted to do it on the Golden Gate?" She looks up at him, intending a retort, but her eyes, traitorous, fill with tears. He cups her head in his hands and kisses her eyelids; she's tall enough that he has to lean up to do it. "How about just your bed for now?" he suggests.

She nods. Jim takes her hand, and they walk back into the bedroom. Jim tucks the sheet around them, and they lie together in the sunlight, letting the darkness burn away.

 

+||+||+

 

Their lives are paths they walk together.

**Author's Note:**

> Folks who have seen the movie may recall that Kirk and McCoy don't know who Spock is until after the hearing regarding the _Kobayashi Maru_ simulation. Obviously, the first paragraphs of this fic narrate otherwise; this was deliberate. Though this is a story about Lee and Jim, I wanted the women to be friends—and if they'd been friends, it's likely that Lee (and Jim) would have known about Uhura and Spock's, er, extracurricular activities (which I am saying totally started when she was his student, because it is extra-dirty that way). If you don't recognize the lyrics Jim sings from Van Halen's "Hot for Teacher," I can only suggest that you, like Lee, need an education in classical music.
> 
> * * *
> 
> **Sequel: [Things That You Guess and Things That You Know](http://archiveofourown.org/works/66442).**

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [A Shifting Destination (Iron Lady/Armor Up Multimix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/384435) by [Mad_Maudlin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mad_Maudlin/pseuds/Mad_Maudlin)




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